Spring surge: Africans risk lives to reach Europe

Published 7:14 pm, Wednesday, April 9, 2014

Africans watch a soccer match at a center for migrants at the Spanish enclave of Melilla, which offers one of the only land routes between the world's richest and poorest continents.

Africans watch a soccer match at a center for migrants at the Spanish enclave of Melilla, which offers one of the only land routes between the world's richest and poorest continents.

Photo: Santi Palacios, Associated Press

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In this photo taken on Saturday March 22, 2014, an sub Saharan immigrant walks inside a Temporary Centre for Immigrants (CETI) where he resides, at the Spanish enclave of Melilla. Tens of thousands of migrants try to force their way every year into Europe along half a dozen routes, but nowhere is this constant struggle more dramatic than the seaside Spanish enclaves of Melilla and Ceuta which offer the only land route between the world's richest and poorest continents. Nearly every week hundreds of migrants creep down from mountain camps to throw themselves through Moroccan police and clamber over three barbed wire laced fences. Here immigration has become an Olympic event. (AP Photo/Santi Palacios) less

In this photo taken on Saturday March 22, 2014, an sub Saharan immigrant walks inside a Temporary Centre for Immigrants (CETI) where he resides, at the Spanish enclave of Melilla. Tens of thousands of migrants ... more

Photo: Santi Palacios, Associated Press

Image 3 of 3

In this photo taken on Friday, March 28, 2014, a sub Saharan immigrant sits inside a Temporary Centre for Immigrants (CETI) after jumping the fence that separates Morocco and the Spanish enclave of Melilla. Tens of thousands of migrants try to force their way every year into Europe along half a dozen routes, but nowhere is this constant struggle more dramatic than the seaside Spanish enclaves of Melilla and Ceuta which offer the only land route between the world's richest and poorest continents. Nearly every week hundreds of migrants creep down from mountain camps to throw themselves through Moroccan police and clamber over three barbed wire laced fences. Here immigration has become an Olympic event. (AP Photo/Santi Palacios) less

In this photo taken on Friday, March 28, 2014, a sub Saharan immigrant sits inside a Temporary Centre for Immigrants (CETI) after jumping the fence that separates Morocco and the Spanish enclave of Melilla. ... more

Photo: Santi Palacios, Associated Press

Spring surge: Africans risk lives to reach Europe

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Melilla, Spain --

They perched atop a barbed-wire laced fence for more than seven hours, hands and feet bloodied, buffeted by chill winds whipping the cliffs of Africa's Mediterranean coast.

The 27 sub-Saharan African migrants were literally on the edge between Africa's economic misery and the long-dreamt riches of Europe: On one side of the fence was Morocco, on the other the Spanish enclave of Melilla.

Thirst, hunger and exhaustion wore the migrants down. One by one, they shakily climbed down the ladder that Spanish authorities had propped up on their side of the fence. Spanish police led the Africans back to Morocco - and into the hands of their waiting Moroccan counterparts.

The men are part of a spring migration offensive from Africa to Europe, with record numbers of desperate people risking death in their quest for a better life. They use perilous routes such as Mediterranean Sea crossings on rickety boats to the Italian island of Lampedusa or treks through desert, jungle and mountain that culminate in attempts to scale fences erected to keep them out of Melilla and Spain's other North African enclave, Ceuta.

Official data for 2013 are not yet available from Spain - but already in the first three months of this year, the number of migrants making it into Melilla has surpassed the estimated 1,000 who got in last year. On March 18 alone, a record 500 people made it over, while weeks before the Moroccans blocked another 700 migrants- numbers unheard of in the past.

The increasing pressure of African immigration is felt across Europe, with the United Nations reporting a 300 percent rise in migrants this spring attempting boat crossings to Lampedusa.

Italy picked up some 4,000 migrants at sea in the last two days alone, the government said Wednesday. This year, 15,000 migrants have already been rescued by Italy, with another 300,000 waiting in Libya to board dangerously unsafe smuggling boats.

For the Melilla migrants, most of whom spent at least two years traveling from their destitute homes in central and west Africa to get here, the climb-down will be a temporary setback. In weeks, they will likely be back, trying once more to enter Europe. Dozens are wounded with every attempt. There are often fatalities, including 15 who drowned in waters outside Ceuta on Feb. 6 after Spanish guards fired at them with rubber bullets.

Melilla and Ceuta offer the only land route between the world's richest and poorest continents.

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